[quahaug]

Actually, this crops up as a legal/insurance concern for larger valuable companies every so often, where company policy must stipulate in writing that critical numbers and/or groups of employees should not fly on the same airplane at the same time, since airplanes, though statistically safer than cars, are still prone to catastrophic accidents and are opperated by pilots not under direct control of the company.

In order to fulfill certain contracts or receive insurance coverage, written language for company travel policies must ensure the continuity of proprietary trade secrets, and redundancy for mission-critical personnel, in case of disaster, or catastrophic accident.

There was a tech company (during the 80's or 90's?) that was completely destroyed by a single random plane crash that killed a handful of the key people in one fell swoop, but the name escapes me, and my google skills are failing. Maybe someone else will remember. I want to say it was a vintage video game company, but it might've just been some old (now defunct) electronics company...

For this same reason, the president and vice president of the united states don't fly together. I think military command adheres to similar rules.

[flurdy]

You would think governments would also avoid such risk, but the top brass of Polish government all got wiped out when a plane crashed in Russia in 2010, including their President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Polish_Air_Force_TU-154_c... A sad event, but could have been avoided or at least minimised.

[e28eta]

I wonder how that squares with tech companies providing shuttle buses in the Bay Area. I found a reasonable looking comparison that said bus travel is more dangerous than flying.

My guess is the company has more control over the bus, or the bus charter company shoulders the insurance burden.

[nknighthb]

The missing factor is time for recovery. If an employee, even an executive, dies, it may be a problem, but probably not a catastrophe. Others can pick up the slack, a replacement can be hired and trained, etc.. You can kill the entirety of the original team and not be in dire straits, provided they die over the course of several years.

If an entire team dies at once, there's no one to pick up the slack, and no one to train replacements.

It is both unlikely that an entire team will be on a commuter bus at once, and even if they were, it is unlikely that a bus crash would kill all of them.

Plane crashes, in contrast, have a nasty habit of killing everybody on board all at once.

[maccard]

I don't think you understand what he meant. I know there are companies around me that have offices located in not-so-central areas of the city that offer a free bus service to bring you from major public transport hubs to their offices.

[nknighthb]

It is true there are corporate shuttles covering a variety of distances and particular use cases. It eludes me why that makes you think I didn't understand, or what it has to do with my comment.

[walshemj]

And a bus crash will not normally have a 100% fatality rate

[newerguy]

Though not the event to which you are referring, Trump lost 3 senior executives in a helicopter crash back in '89. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/11/nyregion/copter-crash-kill...